Heather split's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

Cyndi came back before the crowd had fully thinned. She walked back into the circle with three strangers behind her, and her hands were full of light. She had pulled every scrap of stored magic she still had, and it was loose in her fingers now, spitting sparks in every direction. One bolt hit a stone. One hit the grass. One went wide over the heads of the last watchers, and they ran. Heather stepped in front of the children before she thought about it. Bella was already moving. "Get them down," Bella said. Goldie and Sierra dropped to a crouch at the edge of the circle. Silver stood behind her mother, tall and steady, her white hair catching the last of the light. The board went hot in Heather's hand. The marker moved on its own. Heather read it fast. "Give them the time. Give her the realms." She looked at Bella. Bella nodded once. Bella crossed to Goldie and Sierra and put a hand on each of their heads. "All of it," she said. "You hold time together now." The magic left her in a slow, clean line, gold into Goldie, green into Sierra. Goldie gasped. Sierra did not. When Bella lifted her hands, the two girls stood up different. Sierra's eyes were bright. Goldie's hair sparked at the ends. They faced Cyndi together and the air around Cyndi thickened, then held. Bella turned to Silver. "The realms are yours," she said. "Rule them the way you said you would." She pressed her palm flat to Silver's chest. Heather stepped in beside her sister and laid her own hand next to Bella's. She spoke the names out loud so the board could lock them. "Silver Powerforce. Cyndi Cylendar, the younger. Rulers of the realms and keepers of time." The marker wrote it. The ink set black. Silver drew in one breath and the power settled into her like it had been waiting. Cyndi threw everything she had left. It came at Bella and Heather in one wide arc, purple and mean. Heather did not move. Bella did not move. They took the strike together, shoulder to shoulder, and the magic went into them instead of past them. Heather felt her feet go heavy first. Then her hands. Then her hair. She looked at Bella and Bella looked back, and Bella's mouth moved in something close to a smile. The stone climbed up their arms and closed over their faces at the same second. Silver did not wait. She raised one hand at her aunt and the air went white. Cyndi's coat froze first. Then her arm, still lifted. Then her face, flat and unsurprised. The third statue joined the other two inside the circle. Goldie stepped forward and set her palm on the stone that had been her mother. Sierra set hers on the stone that had been Heather. Silver looked at the crowd that was left, which was small now, and said, "It's the next generation. Go home." They went. The three girls stayed in the circle until dark. Heather's children came down from the car and stood between Goldie and Sierra, and no one told them to look away from the stone that had been their mother. Silver knelt and spoke to the smallest one, and the child nodded and took her hand. In the morning Silver would open the house Bella had kept for centuries, and Goldie and Sierra would set the first clock together, and the realms would hold. Heather had wanted her sisters back on the same side. In the end she had put herself between them, and the war had stopped there. The children were safe. The role had passed. The circle was quiet. The story her sisters had refused to tell was over, and it was not hers to finish.